BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — Jordan White’s prayers began in August and continued through halftime Friday.

He didn’t ask for yards or touchdowns or wins, just health. An injury-free day of college football. Nothing more.

Friday, in the bitter cold and ferocious wind tunnel that is Bowling Green State University’s football stadium, White played his 12th such game day, completing his first healthy season in five years at Western Michigan University.

It wound up being perhaps the greatest statistical season ever put together by a Broncos pass catcher — 1,358 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns on 94 catches.

No receiver in school history has ever tallied more yards in a fall. White passed Jamarko Simmons’ receiving yards record of 1,276 on his first catch in Friday’s 41-7 win. He’d already passed Greg Jennings’ best year (1,259) a week earlier.

“There’s a lot of prayers and prayers being answered ... just to come out and play,” White said, after another seven catches and 110 yards Friday. “And then to see what I can do if I get a whole healthy year, it’s rewarding.”

Through serious injuries to both knees and two lost seasons (2006 and 2008), White stopped hoping for this day. On-field production he could control. Knee cartilage and ligaments he couldn’t.

“When he stepped on campus, I knew that kid was pretty special,” Broncos coach Bill Cubit said of White, who also missed three games with injuries in both 2007 and ’09. “And then of course he had that knee injury (four days into fall camp as freshman). All he had to do was stay healthy.”

White wasn’t emotional or delusional Friday evening. He understands the significance of passing two players viewed as lions of Bronco football lore. But he doesn’t think he’s done what they did.

“Obviously it means a lot from what those guys have done here, of what Greg has gone on to do in the NFL,” White said. “Just to pass somebody like that means a lot. But I think it’s a lot of this guy right here, too, because I don’t think Jamarko or Jennings had anybody on the other side of the football kind of taking away some of the coverage. It’s not so much just me, like it was those two guys.”

The “guy right here” was senior receiver Juan Nunez, standing a few feet away against a wall in a noisy hallway underneath the stands at Doyt L. Perry Stadium.

If not for White, this column might be about Nunez, who finished his final regular season at WMU with 91 catches, 1, 032 yards and his own 10 touchdowns.

They’re the first tandem in Mid-American Conference history to each catch more than 90 passes in a season. And their combined 185 catches is the most by a duo in college football this year.

“I mean, you’re talking about some high numbers,” Cubit said of a pair whose 2,390 yards is easily the most by two wideouts at WMU. “This isn’t like some team (that doesn’t throw it). The Gregs and Jamarkos, that’s a lot of yards. And that’s a lot of yards for two 1,000-yard receivers. That’s special. That really is. That isn’t going to happen much in the NCAA.

“What’s been nice about it is I’ve been a part of every one of them,” Cubit said of watching Jennings, Simmons and now White and Nunez. “And not that it’s me, but watching how hard that is. That’s a lot of yards. That’s a lot of catches. And you have to stay healthy. And boy, you’ve got to compete and you’ve got to have great passion every time the ball is in the air. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into that.”

For White, it begins with willing knees, which the 6-foot, 210-pound wideout is hoping give him a dozen more healthy games next year and perhaps one more next to Nunez this season.

“There’s a possibility we could get another game, a bowl game, and we could play side-by-side again,” Nunez said, after the Broncos’ sixth win made them bowl-eligible. “It’s a blessing just to be able to play side-by-side with him.”

“I’d like to play another game with him whenever, with this team,” added White, who confirmed he plans to return for a sixth season next year, once the NCAA grants his medical hardship waiver, which is only a formality. “We kind of talked at the beginning of the year, because we were both the go-to guys, we talked about looking around the country and looking at other people with 1,000 yards, really wondering why we haven’t done that yet, wondering why we haven’t had 10-touchdown seasons?”

They both have now. And neither is taking it for granted, especially the player who didn’t assume anything about the final nine yards he needed to pass Simmons.